


Never Coming Home

by ierodorable



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-16 04:24:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/535474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ierodorable/pseuds/ierodorable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been five years and Gerard still hasn't sorted through her stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Coming Home

It’s been five years and Gerard still hasn’t sorted through her stuff. He still hasn’t gone through anything. Sure, he’s held her stuff. And he’s smelt her clothes and her incense and he’s worn a couple of her shirts (even if he did do that before). Not so much that they start to smell like him though, because he’d hate then, if they smelled of him instead of her. He’s read her favourite books and listened to her CD’s, but he hasn’t like, sorted through it.  
18 months after it happened, Mikey made him move all of her things up into the attic, but even then he still brought some of it back down. He never told Mikey.  
Gerard sits on the edge of the bed, his eyes flicking between the year written in big bold letters on the calendar, and the date, highlighted with the blue pen of hers that sits in the bedside table drawer.  
It’s the eighth of May, 2013. It’s been five years. And, as Gerard remembers with a groan, he promised he’d call Frank today.  
“Hey.” Frank greets, with that sympathetic tone that Gerard’s gotten sick of over the years.  
“You comin’ over?” Gerard says, his voice cracking slightly due to lack of sleep. He hadn’t even had any coffee yet, and he was sure that was against some kind of law. He wishes the President would declare that Gerard Way couldn’t go through May the eighth without at least five cups of coffee first.  
“Are you ready to do this?” Frank tentatively asks one of the most ridiculous questions Gerard has heard in his life.  
“Nope.” Gerard chuckles depressingly.  
“Okay. I’ll be there in like twenty. You don’t have to get dressed or anything, just, like, don’t be naked, you know? And I’ll bring coffee, okay?” Frank says, and Gerard just nods into the phone before hanging up. He stands up, grabs the t-shirt of hers that he keeps under the pillow and pulls it on. It’s a little snug but he really doesn’t care.  
This is gonna be one fucking long day, Gerard sighs, before plonking down the stairs to get some motherfuckin’ coffee.

***

Frank arrives when he said he would, which is strange, but Gerard is kind of expecting strange today. They go and sit at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, and Gerard gulps down the two coffees Frank brought him (two, because Frank is all kinds of awesome).  
“Shall we just get this over with?” Gerard finally says, deciding that he can’t take anymore slurping noises.  
“If you want…” Frank shrugs.  
“Don’t.” Gerard says. “Don’t be like that.”  
“Like what?” Frank asks.  
“Don’t treat me like I’m a fucking China Doll, Frank. I don’t need it.”  
“Okay.” Frank says, shaking his head slightly. “Whatever, let’s go then.” He says, leaving the kitchen. Gerard grimaces, chucks the empty coffee cups and follows Frank.

***

The attic is dark, dusty and smells funny. Gerard came up here with Mikey two years ago to try and do what he was doing now, but he couldn’t. He hasn’t been up since.  
Frank flicks the switch on the light, and the place is flooded with a horrible florescence. He goes over to the mountain of boxes across the back wall, as well as the covered up canvases leaning against it, and turns to face Gerard.  
“Where do we start?”  
Gerard joins Frank at the boxes and drags over the first one. He has no idea what’s inside, and he really doesn’t want to know.  
“Look, Gerard.” Frank starts. Gerard stops the dragging and looks up at him. “I’m not gonna treat you like you’re made of glass. I’m just treating you like my best friend whose fucking wife died five years ago. It’s not a fucking bad thing to get sympathy. It’s just, like, if you wanna talk, I’m here. Okay?”  
Gerard blinks. He wasn’t expecting that. “Okay.” He mumbles, and sits down cross-legged by the box. Frank joins him, figuring it would be a good position for sorting. Gerard takes the scissors they brought up, cuts through the tape and lifts up the flaps.  
Gerard almost bursts into tears then. The whole box smells like Lindsey, and it fucking looks and tastes like Lindsey as well. He gasps, taking in some of the dust and tasting her favourite shower gel on his tongue at the same time. He had stopped buying the brand when Ray found the bottles hoarded under his sink, but the scent instantly takes him back. He remembered making her squeal the house down when he’d make the water go ice cold whilst she was in the shower.  
God, he misses that.  
“I miss her smell.” He blurts suddenly, wiping his sweaty palms on his pyjama pants. He looks at Frank, who isn’t wearing the expression that Gerard expects him to be wearing. You know, that one of sympathy and awkwardness which kind of says ‘Aww, how sad, now get the fuck away from me, I don’t know how to handle sad people.’ Frank looks like he’s contemplating something; his eyebrows are furrowed, making little creases in between them. Gerard wishes he could draw Frank looking like this.  
“Yeah. I mean, it’s like something you don’t really notice until it’s gone, right?” Frank suddenly says, stopping Gerard from deciding whether or not to make Frank a vampire.  
“Yeah. It’s just, I don’t know, like, something I had gotten used to. It was all over the house, and now it’s just gone.” Gerard says, stumbling over his words slightly. Gerard likes words, and he likes talking. Most of the time, people couldn’t get him to shut up, but when it came to this, this one fucking subject, his throat always got clogged up. Mikey says it’s was normal, but Gerard hates the feeling.  
Frank nods simply in response to Gerard, and pulls out an item from the box. Oh yeah, Gerard thinks, sorting shit.  
“Keep or not keep?” Frank says, waving the little Buddha statue in Gerard’s face.  
“Keep.” Gerard says without really thinking about it. He barely remembers the statue thing, but he figures it should hold some kind of memory that will surely come back to him with time. Frank places the statue behind him, officially starting the ‘keep’ pile. He picks up the next object, something Gerard was sure he’d thrown out before the accident. Oh well, Lindsey probably kept it for a reason.  
“Keep.” Gerard says before Frank could ask the question. Frank raises an eyebrow but puts the item on the ‘keep’ pile.  
They’re maybe twenty items in when Frank realises what’s going on. Actually, it’s not that much of a realisation. He didn't go ‘The fucker, so that’s what he’s doing!’, it just kinda figured that Gerard would wanna keep everything.  
“New rule Gee, because you’re gonna keep everything.” Frank sighs.  
“No I’m not!” Gerard protests. He dives into the box, trying to find something, anything that he wouldn't mind parting with.  
When he comes up empty-handed, he thinks Frank might have some sort of point.  
“Okay.” He huffs. “What’s the rule?”  
“You can keep ten things from each box and ten things only.” Frank says, and of course Gerard thinks it’s the most outrageous thing he’s ever heard.  
“I know what you’re gonna say, and yes, I can ask you, and I just did. This needs to be done Gerard. I know you've probably heard this a million times, but it’ll be good for you.” Frank says. Gerard really can’t see how getting rid of Lindsey’s stuff is a good thing. To some, it may seem slightly materialistic, but he doesn't want to keep the stuff for aesthetics, or because of how expensive it was or whatever. To Gerard, each and every minuscule item that Lindsey ever owned, from canvases to pairs of socks or incense, is a piece of her. Something she got for herself, because she liked it, or something someone bought for her, because they thought she’d like it (whether she did or not is a different story), and in some cases something she made herself. All of this stuff, this junk even, is Lindsey.  
How could Frank be asking him to throw that away? To throw her away?  
“Frank, I can’t. It’s her Frank, it’s all her. I can’t just throw it in the trash.” Gerard says, feeling that familiar knot in his stomach and burning in his eyes. He blinks; what a stupid thing to cry over, right?  
“It’s not her. It’s just her stuff.”  
“But that’s the thing. It’s her stuff, all the things she liked and maybe didn’t like as well. It’s her. Don’t you see?” Gerard turned to face Frank, thinking maybe if he talked to Frank’s face rather than the box that his message might come across clearer.  
“I get it. I do, it’s like all her things, and things show you what a person is into and stuff. But you can remember what she liked and didn’t like and everything else without all this stuff clogging up your attic Gee.” Frank’s staring into Gerard’s eyes so intensely that he has to look away briefly. When he looks back, and finds he’s met with the same intensity, he knows Frank is right. But, there’s still that stupid nagging voice in the back of Gerard’s head, making him ask a question he’s wanted an answer to for ages.  
“But what if I forget?”  
Frank smiles and Gerard’s stomach twists again, but for a different reason. Gerard’s used to feeling like this around Frank though; it’s just kind of a fact of life. Frank smiles that stupid, awesome smile, and Gerard feels like he’s gonna barf butterflies. Just like whenever Frank makes some kind of suggestive comment, and even though Gerard knows it’s harmless, he still feels like he’s jumped face first into Mount Vesuvius.  
“Gerard, how could you ever forget Lindsey? Seriously? Don’t be so stupid dude. Lindsey was an amazingly awesome person, like one of the kindest and smartest people I’ve ever met. I am never going to forget her, and I didn’t even live with her Gee.” Frank says fervidly. Gerard nods, because yeah, Gerard’s brain; how could he ever forget her? God, the way Frank says it, just hearing someone actually confirm it makes him see that it would be absolutely fucking impossible to forget her. And, if he ever did start to, he’s sure she’d give him some kind of other-worldly kick in the balls for being such an idiot.  
“So you agree with the new rule then?” Frank asks.  
Gerard rubs his face. “Yeah.”  
From then on, Gerard’s decisive. He and Frank clear out four of the six boxes in an hour, which is fucking progress. Actually, considering the fact that two years ago Gerard came up here and couldn’t even touch anything, this is like a Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin moment.  
Frank calls for a break, which Gerard doesn’t think is such a good idea. He’s in a kind of working-and-throwing-shit-out frame of mind now; taking a break could hinder that (or destroy it completely). However, although they’ve only been there for about an hour and a half, Frank looks bored as fuck and pretty tired. Gerard remembers how he practically guilt tripped Frank into cancelling whatever plans he might have had today to come and help his pathetic friend. He decides that yeah, they should probably take a break.

“You look tired.” Gerard says dumbly once they’ve sat down on the couch. Frank nods; his eyes closed, and he rests his head against the pillows.  
“Didn’t sleep much.” Frank says, and Gerard feels slightly worse about himself. Frank could have slept in. Frank could have slept all fucking day, but no.  
“Sorry.” Gerard mumbles.  
“For what?”  
“Making you come over here when you could have been sleeping or some shit.”  
“You didn’t make me come over here. I actually would’ve come over even if you didn’t ask.” Frank says, exhaling deeply.  
“Why’s that?” Gerard asks.  
“Well number one: you’re my friend and I’m not a dick. And two, you were kinda the reason I couldn’t sleep.” Frank says. He got quieter as he spoke, the last words ending up just above a whisper.  
“Huh?” Blurts Gerard.  
“It was like my brain refused to shut up. I kept thinking about you and today and I couldn’t sleep.” Frank smiles wistfully and opens his eyes, like he’s actually fond of the memory. “Don’t worry though.” He adds, looking at Gerard and seeing the same expression he’d been anticipating. “I’m fine.”  
“No, you’re not Frank. You can, you can sleep in the spare room if you need to. Or, like, you could go home and sleep. Yeah, you’d, uh, probably prefer that.” Gerard was thinking aloud, a thing he usually only did alone. He couldn’t help it though. Knowing that Frank had thought about him all night was messing up the conversation and human interaction part of his brain.  
“I don’t wanna go home. But I don’t particularly wanna move either.” Frank giggles. He leans to the side; more specifically, he leans on Gerard, and closes his eyes again. Gerard doesn’t realise he’s holding his breath until Frank lets out a dreamy “Relax,” and snuggles in closer to Gerard’s side, his head falling against Gerard’s shoulder. Gerard does as he’s told, feeling Frank’s breath tickling his neck. He feels relaxed, for the first time all day, all week, all fucking year. He could get used to this, he thinks. To having Frank there, just there. He wraps his arm around Frank’s waist, and the younger man sighs contentedly.  
All those clichés, about having gaping holes in your chest, and needing to find that one person that can fill them? Gerard used to think it was romantic bullshit, but it really fucking wasn’t. When Lindsey died, it felt like the good part of Gerard died as well. And to be honest, in those first couple of months, Gerard had wished the rest of him had gone too. He hadn’t felt that level of despair in so fucking long, and it wasn’t welcomed back.  
Gerard got over it though. He honestly didn’t deserve any of his friends or family, for all those 2 AM phone calls, and for Mikey having to come and stay with Gerard when he could have been with Alicia, and just every-fucking-thing. They were beyond amazing to him, and Gerard constantly feels like he’s letting them down, because, even though he’s a lot better now, he stills feels so fucking empty. He always felt like filling the holes would be forgetting Lindsey, or replacing her; but there, on the couch with Frank curled up next to him, steadily drifting off to sleep, he knows it’s not true.  
Frank fills those holes, but he’s not making Gerard forget, not at all. It just hurts less. So much less.  
And that, is something Gerard could get used to.


End file.
